Bigert & Bergström, The Last Calendar
The perfect gift for your favorite prophet! From Cabinet: When the current cycle of the Maya Long Count calendar concludes on 21 December 2012, the world will end. Of course, this is hardly the first time the planet’s demise has been prophesied. And so Cabinet offers you, doomed reader, a guide to the brief time that remains. […]
Free, Beautiful, Biodegradable Toys!
As part of my quest to incorporate more DIY, reused or found toys into my children’s lives, we’ve made it a point to show up at the beach without pails, shovels, etc and then see what we can find. My kids often find their own treasures, but sometimes (especially early on) I have found it’s […]
Postcard from the Farm
Lemongrass is one of my favorite herbs, well grasses I should say. It grows prolifically wherever we seem to plant it (on the farm in Garza, Costa Rica). Two great culinary applications are pictured above and you can check out the growing process below. 🙂
VOWEL HOUSE
In 1955, the letter A was used as the form for a structure by the architect Andrew Geller for the Reese House, a beach residence in Long Island, New York. The New York Times published the house on May 5, 1957. Following the publication of the house, the form went viral across the globe. Today, […]
New Windowfarms!
Creating your own Windowfarm is about to get a whole lot easier. Last week, the cool Brooklyn-based organization that creates vertical, hydroponic, modular, low-energy, high-yield edible indoor window gardens, succeeded in meeting their Kickstarter goal. Now they will be able to manufacture new Windowfarm systems that look great and are easier to use. The new […]
Materials for the Arts
Materials for the Arts (MFTA) is an incredible collaboration between the Department of Cultural Affairs and the Department of Sanitation in NYC. Â It was founded in 1978 to gather materials from companies and individuals who no longer need them and makes them available for free to NYC’s arts and cultural organizations, public schools and community […]
Urban Bee Keeping
Bees make the world go round! Now with this very well designed concept, you can have your very own bee hive at home. Honey bees are a very important part of our ecosystem, but for the past few years their colonies have been in a decline leading to drastically reduced bee population. Strangely, bees seem […]
Biking Down Broadway!
Many of you visiting or living in NY may have noticed a huge increase in bike lanes throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. The move to make biking a viable alternative method of transport is going to get even better with the addition of a bicycle share program. The program, modeled after similar systems in Europe and other […]
Earth Time Lapse
Here’s an incredible time lapse made from photographs taken by the crew onboard the International Space Station (ISS) from August to October 2011. Shot from an altitude of around 350 km the earth looks like one big living organism and really puts human civilization in perspective. The video was edited together by Michael König.
Work by Helmut Smits
Blown-up plant labels in nature reserve Het Bossche Broek emphasize the richness of flora and question what ‘nature’ in the Netherlands actually implies. Labels by Helmut Smits. Photos by Lotte Stekelenburg.
Building it Better
As a set designer in the film and photo industry I am concerned with the amount of waste generated in these industries. I applaud the efforts of the BIG!NYC, otherwise known as “Build It Green-NYC” a not-for-profit organization that salvages materials from a variety of buildings about to be demolished or remodeled in New York […]
Antarctica in NYC
An invitation for an event in NYC tonight from Harmonizer DJ Spooky: Hey you all – as you may know, I have a new book out about Antarctica, The Book of Ice. You are invited to an exclusive pop-up event with pre-production Antarctica prints and 3D maps at a special price. Celebrate the 100-year anniversary […]
Postcard from the Farm
Greetings from the farm in Garza, Costa Rica where it is hot and humid. We’ve officially returned to the Nicoya Peninsula for the winter season where we were blown away by these beautiful plants: fresh ginger (gingibra in Spanish) from the huerta (garden) in Garza! That ginger goes into making a vodka infusion (see below) […]
Rerip
Wondering what to do with an old or broken surfboard? Rerip it! Rerip is an organization that strives to keep boards out of landfills. Founded by Meghan Dambacher and Lisa Carpenter—San Diego residents and avid surfers—and run by a team of volunteers, Rerip sets up drop off locations for people to leave unwanted boards, fins […]
NYC Trash Talk
A few weeks ago there was an interesting article about the amount of trash we create in NYC and the ways in which our recycling program lags behind other cities. “Environmental advocates call recycling the weak link in the city’s green agenda, even after legislation was passed last year to overhaul the 1989 recycling law […]
Nautilus News
“A horrendous slaughter is going on out here,†said Peter D. Ward, a biologist from the University of Washington, during a recent census of the marine creature in the Philippines. “They’re nearly wiped out. The culprit? Growing sales of jewelry and ornaments derived from the lustrous shell. To satisfy the worldwide demand, fishermen have been […]
Gail Potocki
“I know of no other artist who wields insight, emotion, and intellectual heft—not to mention gorgeous technique—to examine the environmental ills besetting us today. Gail Potocki‘s landscapes are catastrophes unfolding before our eyes—in the sea, in the air, and on the land. Yet her human subjects, shattered and vulnerable, are creatures of exquisite hope… precisely […]
Bright Lights
Started in 2008 by two young architects in Seattle, Graypants design studio creates elegant lights from discarded cardboard. They also make chic chairs, lamps and other objects from scrap materials. This company succeeds in living up to their product’s description: “Graypants scrap lights: creating a brighter now.”
Bottled Up
I’ve always been charmed when recycled bottles are used as eco-friendly design details, but I was blown away by the school in the Philippines constructed earlier this year using bottles. How cool! According to Good Magazine, “The bottles are filled with adobe, made from local mud which sets like concrete, and layered within a steel […]
Design for The Other 90%
Of the world’s total population of 6.5 billion, 5.8 billion people, or 90%, have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted; in fact, nearly half do not have regular access to food, clean water, or shelter. Design for the Other 90% explores a growing movement […]
Tim DeChristopher Update
photo by Daniel Rolnik (Argot & Ochre) Earlier this month Tim DeChristopher started serving his prison sentence; he is now in a correction facility in California reportedly doing well. He writes updates to Grist blog if you want to hear from him. If you want to be in touch with him, send correspondence here: Tim […]
Bat Tower
Almost a year ago, the University at Buffalo’s Joyce Hwang installed this twisted bat house at Griffis Sculpture Park in Southwestern New York state. Bat Tower stands about 12 feet tall, with walls of finished plywood panels arranged in a ribbed, accordion-like pattern. The conspicuous design, unusual for a bat house, serves a purpose: Hwang, […]
BirdScraper
Zhong Huang recently took third place in the Animal Architecture awards with plans for a BirdScraper in New York City. The massive structure designed to house birds should address the problems faced by our feathered friends. “Over 90,000 birds die every year by crashing into skyscrapers because lights inside the buildings attract birds flying right […]
